The Medieval Academy Blog

Roundtable: “Slowly Engaging with the Indigenous Turn” (in person)
60th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Kalamazoo, Michigan

May 9-10, 2025

Roundtable: “Slowly Engaging with the Indigenous Turn”

In 2020, Bitterroot Salish scholar Tarren Andrews, in discussing the recent Indigenous turn in medieval studies, asks medievalists to “slow down” their engagement with Indigenous studies, “to be more deliberate, to be thoughtful, and to consider first the ethics of kinship and reciprocity that we owe Indigenous peoples, places, and communities who have labored to craft Indigenous studies as an academic field” (2). This roundtable asks medievalists to discuss their own internal work and process of slowing down–the self-reflection, self-examination, reassessment, and reorientation needed to ethically and critically engage with Indigenous studies.

Abstracts due September 15th, 2024 to the ICMS Confex site: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/cfp.cgi

Organized by Sarah LaVoy-Brunette & Tarren Andrews

Contact: sfl39@cornell.edu

Panel: “Relational Approaches to the Indigenous Turn” (in-person)
60th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Kalamazoo, Michigan

May 9-10, 2025

In 2020, Bitterroot Salish scholar Tarren Andrews coined the term “Indigenous turn” when describing the recent medievalist engagement with Indigenous studies. Recent scholarship (e.g., Akbari 2023; Price 2024) demonstrates the potentials for an Indigenous turn that is relational when combined with other critical approaches such as trans theory, gender and sexuality studies, premodern critical race studies, the Global Middle Ages, and others. This panel asks for critical contributions that take up relational approaches to the Indigenous turn that ultimately challenge and depart from white, heteronormative subjectivities by accounting for complexity, nuance, liminality, and/or queerness in their analyses.

Abstracts due September 15th, 2024 to the ICMS Confex site: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/cfp.cgi

Organized by Sarah LaVoy-Brunette & Jordan Chauncy

Contact: sfl39@cornell.edu

Panel: “Red Reading the Premodern” (hybrid)
60th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Kalamazoo, Michigan
May 9-10, 2025

This panel takes up Cherokee scholar Scott Andrews’ 2018 challenge to interpret (non-Indigenous) literature from Indigenous perspectives, an approach that he labels a ‘Red Reading,’ and extends it to premodern texts. Red Reading allows us to reconsider premodern texts, divorcing them from engrained approaches towards a plurality of perspectives. Our session takes a global approach to Indigeneity, and we welcome approaches and methods that extend from Indigenous communities within and beyond Turtle Island (examples of the latter includes Sami, Asante, Okinawan, or Zapotec to name but a few).

The threads of Red Reading are many, and we welcome papers that consider (but are not limited to) the following areas of interrogation:

• Reading premodern texts through Indigenous literary approaches and methods
• The representation of Indigenous peoples in premodern texts
• The early threads of settler-colonial ideologies
• Indigenous adaptations/retellings of medieval texts
• Indigenous translations of medieval stories/texts

Abstracts due September 15th, 2024 to the ICMS Confex site: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/cfp.cgi

Organized by Brenna Duperron & Sarah LaVoy-Brunette

Contact: Brenna.Duperron@dal.ca

Are you interested in working with medieval charters? Do you want to learn new interdisciplinary working methods?

The ERC project “People And Writing” was born with the aim of investigating non-aristocratic written production and the level of participation of local societies. One of the main objectives is to create a methodology that allows a complete understanding of writing through the analysis of preserved manuscripts. Our goal is to open this methodology to society as a whole and *we want you to be part of it!*

This workshop will consist of testing this methodology using five digitized original documents* from northern Portugal, dating from the 10th to the 12th centuries. After the registration process is complete, we will invite all participants to a meeting (online) where we will explain in detail what the activity will entail, providing access to the necessary materials and working tools, as well as the composition of the working groups. From that moment, the groups can start working autonomously on the activity (online), for which they will have one month to complete. Once finished, each group will receive a correction proposal to compare the results. After that, each individual will need to fill out an evaluation questionnaire.

Interested? We would love to have your collaboration. Don’t let anything hold you back, this activity is open to all audiences and professional profiles, regardless of their field of expertise. No previous knowledge of palaeography is required.

• Registration form <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdcWGqHDTaaO_S-lzHWZ58L1dNgi2Dh5XgTqyT4HlNGv4w0eQ/viewform>
• Initial meeting date: September 30, 2024 (5:00 PM CEST)
• Activity completion and response submission: October 31, 2024
• Approximate total hours of teamwork: 10 hours
• Registration deadline: September 15

The International Albertus Magnus Society (IAMS) Call For Papers for the International Mediaeval Congress (IMC), Leeds, UK, 7-10 July 2025

The International Albertus Magnus Society (IAMS; https://www.albertthegreat.org) would like to sponsor one or more sessions during the International Mediaeval Congress (IMC), Leeds, UK, 7-10 July 2025  https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2025/.

For 2025 the IMC will have as its theme “Worlds of Learning.” Although individual papers need not address this theme explicitly, nonetheless it offers numerous opportunities for AlbertuH-nets Magnus scholars. Papers might examine Albert’s role in the creation of the Dominican educational curriculum; the influence of his works through vernacular translations; his reception of Greek, Hebrew, or Arabic sources; and much more. The IMC deadline for proposed sessions is September 30, 2024. We invite scholars to submit proposals by September 15, 2024 to Irven M. Resnick (Irven-Resnick@utc.edu) and Mercedes Rubio (mercedes.rubio@villanueva.edu). A proposal requires a title and an abstract not to exceed 100 words. Please include your full name; email address; postal address; telephone number; full affiliation details (department, institution); and title (e.g. Dr, Ms, Mr, Mx, Professor etc).

Although we would prefer in-person presentations, virtual presentations will also be considered. A ninety-minute session typically offers three papers; each presenter will be allowed 20 minutes, to be followed by 10 minutes of questions and discussion. Papers may be presented in languages other than English, although these may have a more limited audience. It will be necessary to include an abstract in English, nonetheless.

If you have any questions, please contact either Irven M. Resnick (Irven-Resnick@utc.edu) and Mercedes Rubio (mercedes.rubio@villanueva.edu).

The program committee for Musicology at Kalamazoo invites submissions for the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies, which will be held on May 8-10, 2025 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The session topics approved by the Congress can be viewed at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call and include:

IN PERSON:

Chant and Liturgy: In Celebration of Joseph Dyer (ID 6365)
Medieval Dance and Processions: In Honor of the Centenary of Ingrid Brainard’s Birth (ID 6387)
Medieval Music and the Modern Imagination (ID 6328)
Musical Theory (ID 6335)
Music and Politics (ID 6367)
Soundscapes (ID 6336)
Text, Image, and Musical Practice (ID 6338)

VIRTUAL:
Digital Humanities and Medieval Music (ID 6385)

We invite both specialists in musical disciplines and specialists in fields other than music to submit proposals, as we hope to foster interdisciplinary dialogue. Musicology at Kalamazoo strives to foster an environment that is supportive of medievalists of color and other marginalized groups. Papers tackling themes of diversity, inclusion, pedagogy, class, race, disability, gender, and sexual orientation will also be particularly welcome at our sessions.

Please keep in mind that we intend these session titles mostly as “hooks,” on which a multitude of proposals can be placed, rather than as limitations, so send us your best work. Proposals for papers (usually 20 mins) should include an abstract of no more than 300 words. All proposals must be submitted by 15 September 2024 via the Confex call for papers system on the ICMS website: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/cfp.cgi. This is required by the Medieval Institute.

The committee is also looking for volunteers to chair sessions. Self-nominations may be sent with a brief CV to the program committee at musicology.kzoo@gmail.com.

If you have any questions, please contact the committee at musicology.kzoo@gmail.com. We look forward to seeing you at Kalamazoo next May.

Sincerely,

The Musicology at Kalamazoo Program Committee
Alison Altstatt
Henry T. Drummond
Melanie Batoff
Alessandra Ignesti
Suzanna Feldkamp

Tis (Not) But a Scratch:
New Directions in Medieval Graffitological Scholarship
Call For Papers: 60^th International Conference on Medieval Studies
Kalamazoo, MI and online (hybrid), May 8-10, 2025

Often divorced from visual studies, inaccessible beyond its support, and erased by well-meaning conservation efforts, medieval and early modern graffiti is difficult to study yet essential for understanding the Middle Ages. Scholars and students of all levels are invited to submit abstracts for papers on medieval and early modern graffiti. The session welcomes interest in graffiti among varied disciplines, such as philosophy, musicology, art history, military history, and theology, and among public-facing institutions concerned with the display and preservation of graffiti in situ and elsewhere. Papers of the “material” and “global” turns and in the digital humanities are especially encouraged.

Please submit a 300-word abstract to https://tinyurl.com/icmsgraffiti2025 by Sept. 15, 2024.

Please direct all questions to organizer Sarah Frisbie via sarah.frisbie@case.edu .

Selected participants will be notified by October 15, 2024.